Don't tell Tim Lovejoy but, between you and me, my heart sank when David Beckham's free-kick somehow sneaked in against Ecuador on Sunday.

Yes, his goal on the hour won the game, but surely England would have won it anyway; only a Paul Robinson clanger looked remotely like netting woeful Ecuador a goal. And Beckham's wicked dipper made it significantly less likely that England will win the whole tournament because it allowed him and his ever-faithful manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, to trumpet from the rooftops after the game that El Capitan had stuffed his critics' words down their throats, thus cementing his place in the side for as long as England survive in the World Cup.

Except that he hadn't done anything of the sort. That goal, after all, was virtually Beckham's only contribution to England's latest miserable failure to pass themselves off as potential World Cup winners - apart, perhaps, from giving the world a yucky foretaste of how the English would celebrate such a triumph: by getting over-excited and then chundering all over their shoes. Even his free kicks and corners were generally poor, and as for his contribution in open play - well, there simply wasn't one. Not one whipped cross. Not one canny ball inside. Nothing.

It occurred to me after 59 minutes of excruciating football that even Sven must now recognise that there is no place in a team with World Cup-winning ambitions for a fading superstar shuffling around the pitch like Elvis on the Las Vegas stage.

True, Beckham's 60th-minute contribution was the third time in the tournament that he has been responsible for an English goal. But who knows how many goals Aaron Lennon might have created had he been given the chance? Sure, his crossing is not remotely up to Beckham's standards, but at least he gets into positions from which a cross might be attempted. At least he is capable of committing a man and beating him. And, just as importantly, at least he is capable of making England a team worth watching, instead of a team only marginally easier on the eye than Switzerland.

Sven should stick to 4-5-1 for the Portugal game, dropping Beckham and Frank Lampard (about whose poor form I've already had my say. He should stick Lennon on the right and follow Rafa Benítez's example at Liverpool by building the team around Steven Gerrard, playing him just behind the lone striker, Rooney, and supporting him in midfield with a tackler - for Momo Sissoko, read Owen Hargreaves - and a passer - for Xabi Alonso, read Michael Carrick. After all, Gerrard has already scored two goals from the holding role: imagine how many more he could get if freed from defensive duties and worries about whether it might be Lampard's turn to charge into the box. But I know it's not going to happen. Sven is more loyal than a golden retriever: far too loyal to retrieve the golden trophy.

Of course, given the calibre of the refereeing ever since Graham Poll made a laughing stock of himself, it may not matter how England line up. If South Korea could get to the semi-finals last time on the back of some of the most ludicrous refereeing in football history, maybe England - who, for all their failings, are a far superior team - could go even further.

But who'd have thought before the tournament started that we would already be clutching at such straws?